cia – Page 196 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Chicken Tagine with Vegetables and Preserved Lemon

This is the boy’s favorite dish among the many I try to cook for him. Rachel cooked this dish for her husband and it passed his test–he’s Moroccan. Serve this with crusty bread and even a Korean man would be impressed.

Ingredients:
6 chicken drumsticks and thighs, skin removed
half a bag of baby carrots
4 baby potatoes, quartered
3 large red onions, finely chopped
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
chicken stock
1 tomato, to be grated over tagine
1 preserved lemon, cut into strips, pulp removed
juice from 1 lemon
1 cup green peas
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Over high heat, add olive oil and cook the chicken until golden brown on both sides.
2. Add the onions, ginger, turmeric and black pepper. Add enough chicken stock to cover. Add the parsley and cover with lid. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, about 30 minutes.
3. If chicken is cooked, grate one tomato into tagine, add preserved lemon strips, carrots and potatoes. Add a cup of water and the lemon juice. Uncover and cook until vegetables are done and the sauce reduced. Add salt to taste. Add peas in last minute of cooking.

Swedish Meatballs

Adapted from Marcus Samuelsson, Aquavit Restaurant

Ingredients:
For the meatballs:
3/4 pound ground beef
3/4 pound ground pork
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
2 tbsps honey
1 egg
3 tbsps unsalted butter
salt, pepper, olive oil

For the sauce:
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup cranberry relish
2 tbsps juice from a jar of tiny gherkin pickles
salt, pepper

1. SautÃ© onions in hot skillet with olive oil until softened. Let cool and set aside.
2. Make meatballs. In a bowl, mix ground beef and pork with honey, egg, bread crumbs and cream. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Melt butter in the same skillet. Brown meatballs and cook for about 7 minutes. Transfer to a clean plate. Keep skillet on heat and discard the remaining oil and juice except for 1 tablespoon.
4. Make sauce by whisking stock, cream, cranberry and pickle juice in the skillet over medium heat. Simmer and add salt and pepper to taste. Add meatballs and simmer for an extra 5 minutes and until sauce is slightly thickened.
5. Serve with tiny gherkins and top with more cranberry relish.

egg

135A North 5th Street off Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718/302.5151
about $50 for two, without drinks, with tip
â™¥ â™¥ â™¥

My only complaint about egg is that it stops serving breakfast at noon. That doesn’t give me enough time to wake up in Harlem and trudge all the way to Brooklyn to eat breakfast. I’m sure the hipsters who live in the neighborhood feel the same way. But if any of us need a good reason to wake up, it’s breakfast via the L train to Williamsburg. The menu is short, southern-inspired and most especially, organic. There’s the delicious ham and the orgasmic bacon, the fresh and warm homemade biscuits with sausage gravy, the grits made with love, the fig jam and the oh-so-real potato hash.

If you’ve never made a big deal of breakfast, you’ve never had a meal at egg. One bite and you’d forget that you’d otherwise still be sleeping. The best part of it all is still feeling pretty good after your big meal. Every ingredient was selected by its chef, George Weld, to make sure that you’re not putting anything bad in your mouth. This is important because, hey, you still have seven hours to go before the sun goes down.

Related post/s:
Sparkys All-American Food

Cafe Mogador

101 St. Marks Place between First and Avenue A
212/677-2226
about $80 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

Whenever I’m craving for a lamb dinner but don’t necessarily want Indian food, I go to Cafe Mogador. Their tagines are excellent here and my favorite is the lamb with couscous in saffron sauce. The staff is not the friendliest–every time I visit, I always wait outside for at least 30 minutes to be seated even though there are empty tables inside. I’ve learned to bug the waiters, though, and point to an empty table and volunteer my party to be seated right away. I don’t understand how they work, but it’s hard to say no to a comforting tagine.

Raspberry Pastries

I love Everyday Food because they have simple recipes like this pastry snack using the frozen kind. I’m sure Martha would prefer that you make your own pastry shell from scratch and pick raspberries from your own garden, but frozen pastry and raspberries in a jar work, too.

Ingredients:
1 box or 6 pieces of frozen puff pastry shells, thawed
raspberry jam
white sugar

1. Preheat oven at 400Âº. Spread jam on shells and sprinkle with white sugar on top. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and bake until pastries are puffed and golden, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle with a little more sugar. Let cool and serve.

Related post/s:
Everyday Food at Amazon.com